Fran McCaffery and the big three answer questions from the media about their third straight championship in Monday night’s overtime win over the Fairfield Stags (Monday March 8th).

Winning the MAAC Championship, traditionally played early on in championship week, gives teams, fans, and pundits a welcome luxury – a six day respite before selection Sunday and then another few before the tourney starts in earnest.

With the big three graduating after what hopes to be a fruitful NCAA tournament run, this is the perfect time not only to reflect on their impact on the Siena men’s basketball program, but to also try to place them in their proper slot in the pantheon of Saints/Indians teams in history.

While I’m a modest basketball historian I don’t really go back farther than 1985 in terms of Siena basketball knowledge, although I’m well aware of Billy Harrell and the Bill Kirsch and John Griffin teams that competed over the last 70 years.

The team that put the program on the map, though, was obviously the one that beat Stanford in the 1989 NCAA Tournament, and almost beat Minnesota in the second round, and they have often been praised as the benchmark squad.  All discussions of best Siena teams ever must start here.

When looking at the 1989 team, one has to start with the NAC (which would become the America East Conference) finals which was the culmination of the Measles outbreak quarantine. A Steve McCoy put back off a Tom Huerter miss gave the Saints their first ever trip to the dance after doing the same thing earlier in the year on the road at Pittsburgh.  The NAC finals also was the first time the team played under the Saints moniker after switching from the longtime handle of Siena Indians.

Clearly Marc Brown is the best player to ever wear the green and gold, leading the program with 2284 points scored and 796 assists, and McCoy, Tom Huerter, Jeff Robinson, Monty Henderson, Mike Brown, Steve Downey and Bruce Shroeder were staples on a team that did what this year’s team excels at – they played as a team.  Yes, Showbiz could go off for 30 on any given night, but Robinson and Henderson were like a mix of Edwin and Clarence who could shoot from the outside but also slide in to the paint and get 15 a night at least.  McCoy was the Rossiter counterpoint, but Ryan Rossiter has many more tools than McCoy ever did, as valuable as he was.  And Huerter and Mike Brown were the perimeter players who could drain the threes that this team is somewhat lacking, and also hit mid-range jumpers and finish at the rim.  There were a lot of shooters on a team that Mike Deane liked to run in to the ground, and run in and out of the game – they were deep, and they could score.

I would argue, however, that one must also consider the NIT third place team of 1994, led by Doremus Bennerman, as having a rightful stake to the title of best ever.  While NCAA wins are gold, and we’ve been lucky enough to have seen three now over the years from the green and gold (four if you count the opening game win in 2002,) getting to Madison Square Garden and playing in the NIT final four is air that is just as rarified as that elusive first round NCAA tourney win for most teams.  While Marc Brown held the mantle of most assists in Siena history, eclipsed recently by Ronald Moore, Doremus took the program to new heights, leading the team to what I still feel is one of the most impressive wins in Siena history, and one of the greatest victories I’ve ever seen on their home court, beating the Bobby Cremins led, NCAA tourney snubbed Georgia Tech team in the NIT run in 1994.

They followed that with home wins on the Knickerbocker Arena floor against Tulane and Bradley (the Tulane game still ranking first in home game attendance at 15,727 spectators.)  Doremus scored 51 points in the runner-up game in that NIT at MSG under the bright lights of national television against Kansas State after losing to Villanova in the semis, and grabbed the MVP award for the tournament.  He was paired with fantastic role players and scorers in their own right in Stu Downey, Geoff Walker, Brian Bidlingmyer and Matt Gras – seeing either the 1989 team or this team match up against the big three and their teammates would be a dream for any Siena fan.

Honorable mention has to be given to the 1999-2000 Paul Hewitt led Saints who possibly had the most talent of any class other than the current string of players: Marcus Faison, Dwayne Archibold, Scott Knapp, Jim Cantamessa (nicknamed Cant-a-miss-a for you die-hards), Corey Osinski, Prosper Karangwa and Isiah Stewart – if not for one of the worst matchups any Siena Saint team could ever hope to get in the 1999 NCAA tournament against a superior athletic and hot shooting Arkansas Razorbacks squad, maybe this team would rank a little higher.  There’s no doubt these players deserve mention though, having multiple NIT wins and another NCAA appearance from the miracle MAAC tourney run of 2002 led by Archibold and Karangwa.  The athleticism of this team would match up better with the current crop of players than the 1989 crew, and with Paul Hewitt’s electric offensive system and the outside shooting of Knapp and Cantamessa a high scoring, high octane game would be sure to break out, with the defensive capabilities of Fran McCaffery’s players possibly being the difference, even though Hewitt’s team liked to press just as much.

In viewing the accomplishments of the big three, though, and trying to judge where they fall in Siena basketball greatness, one really only needs to start by looking at the numbers.

• Alex Franklin, Ronald Moore, and Edwin Ubiles have compiled a record of 97-37 in their four years playing under Fran McCaffery
• Ronald Moore is the all time Siena and MAAC conference leader in assists with 818 and will finish the year leading the country in that category.
• Edwin Ubiles is the third all-time leading scorer in Siena history, and Alex Franklin ranks fifth.
• Ryan Rossiter, in his junior year alone, has grabbed 21 double-doubles.
• The Saints have won 38 consecutive home games, and have won 43 of their last 46 games against MAAC opponents.
• For the first time in team history, the Saints have four consecutive 20 win seasons, and are the fourth team in MAAC history to make three consecutive tournament championship game appearances, and the second to win three championships in a row, along with the LaSalle team which dominated the conference 20 years ago.
• The Saints eclipsed the perfect record of the LaSalle team who went 16-0 by going 17-1 in conference this season.

Paired with the numbers alone the two NCAA victories in the last two years cement this team as the best ever to wear the Siena uniform.  The team couldn’t have done it without Tay Fisher, Josh Duell, and most importantly Kenny Hasbrouck in the last three years, so put an asterisk on it if you want, but the bottom line is that everything that has happened on this magical run has happened under the watch of Franklin, Moore, and Ubiles.  The Siena Saints fan base has had much to root for over the years, but nothing more valuable and important than the play of these three student-athletes and Coach Fran McCaffery.